Indian teams lose table tennis group stage matches

The Indian men's and women's table tennis teams suffered comprehensive defeats in their preliminary group stage matches of the 17th Asian Games at the Suwon Gymnasium here Sunday.

The men's team comprising Achanta Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai and Soumyajit Ghosh, was thrashed 0-3 by South Korea in the Group B match while the women's team of Neha Aggarwal, Madhurika Patkar and Manika Batra was annihilated 0-3 by China.

Indian men's team got off to a poor start with veteran Sharath Kamal losing in straight games 0-3 (8-11, 5-11, 10-12) against hosts' Saehyuk Joo.

Up next, Harmeet lost 0-3 (6-11, 8-11, 6-11) to Sangeun Jeong, who gave a 2-0 lead to the 2010 Asiad silver medallists.

In the third rubber, Soumyajit was no match for Jungwoo Lee, who won 0-3 (4-11, 1-11, 8-11) in just 13 minutes.

The men's team, who earlier won against Nepal and Kuwait, finished the group stage in second place and are through to the quarter-finals.

India's fate didn't change later in the day as the women's team also got a similar verdict against the mighty Chinese.

Neha lost first rubber 0-3 (7-11, 5-11, 5-11) to Zhu Yuling while in the second rubber Madhurika got a 0-3 (4-11, 4-11, 3-11) thrashing at the hands of Liu Shiwen, who wrapped up the match in 12 minutes.

Youngster Manika failed to keep India in the tie after losing the third rubber 0-3 (8-11, 2-11, 4-11) in 16 minutes.

Despite the defeat, the Indian women's team has secured a place in the quarter-finals on the basis of their victories over Malaysia and Nepal in the group stage.

All the quarter-finals will take place later in the day.